anonymous commenting sucks

I really liked the idea of the anonymous feature when it was phased in. No more stupid school/bank lists (GS/MS/JPM), ambiguous salary info, or need to make throwaway accounts.

I don't like it for 2 reasons

  1. The best part of WSO is it lets you get all sorts of advice and then it let's see if you're getting bullshitted by checking banana points/MS%.

- The new feature makes this impossible

  1. People are using the anonymity as a shield to be clowns.

- This place has always been full of undergrads, but it feels like WSO is just as uninformed but with less accountability.

Example to both: This dumb as fuck thread: RBC vs Tobin&co
This post is a lazy troll/meme. But the comments are worse. It's just a bunch on anonymous interns yelling at eachother:


Intern in IB - Ind:

Sure, I work for RBC. Doesn't change the fact that it's been memed on this site forever when it really should be just as respected as BAML, Barclays, etc. I agree we're not there yet with GS/MS but give it a few years and you will eat your words.

I hate how some banks just because they're not officially a "bulge bracket" means it's not good. RBC is better than half of the BB at this point just based on deal flow alone.


Intern in IB-M&A:

Notice this same guy is replying to EVERY positive rbc comment here. He changed his name from “Anlayst 1 M&A” to Analyst 1 Industry. Give it up already you’ve been at this for weeks. We throw every fact, league table, deal, comp data, exit data, new seniors, etc. and you clearly pretend nothing of substance was said and go on some strange rant. Give it up, things change and one rejection won’t break you. Good luck

Anyone else feel me on this?
**disclaimer: I have no horse in the race. I work in corp banking.

 

This is actually a good proposition. I personally think allowing anyone to go anonymous has done more harm than good to the site. Allows for toxic/childish/unhelpful comments to be posted with no repercussion.

I haven't seen any certified users go completely pompous, so I feel this would be a good compromise.

Go all the way
 
Most Helpful
Clocks:
I really liked the idea of the anonymous feature when it was phased in. No more stupid school/bank lists (GS/MS/JPM), ambiguous salary info, or need to make throwaway accounts.

With that said, I don't like it for 2 reasons:

  1. The best part of WSO is it lets you get all sorts of advice and then it let's see if you're getting bullshitted by checking banana points/MS%.

- The new feature makes this impossible

  1. People are using the anonymity as a shield to be clowns.

- This place has always been full of undergrads, but it feels like WSO is just as uninformed but with less accountability.

Example to both: This dumb as fuck thread: RBC vs Tobin&co This post is a lazy troll/meme. But the comments are worse. It's just a bunch on anonymous interns yelling at eachother:

Intern in IB - Ind:
Sure, I work for RBC. Doesn't change the fact that it's been memed on this site forever when it really should be just as respected as BAML, Barclays, etc. I agree we're not there yet with GS/MS but give it a few years and you will eat your words.

I hate how some banks just because they're not officially a "bulge bracket" means it's not good. RBC is better than half of the BB at this point just based on deal flow alone.

Intern in IB-M&A:
Notice this same guy is replying to EVERY positive rbc comment here. He changed his name from “Anlayst 1 M&A” to Analyst 1 Industry. Give it up already you’ve been at this for weeks. We throw every fact, league table, deal, comp data, exit data, new seniors, etc. and you clearly pretend nothing of substance was said and go on some strange rant. Give it up, things change and one rejection won’t break you. Good luck

Anyone else feel me on this?

Kind of agree WallStreetOasis.com and AndyLouis

 

On one hand, I do agree that the cloak of anonymity does bring out the worst in some of us but I think it is an overall a net plus to the community.

Being able to discuss sensitive information and share personal insights without the fear of someone eventually putting together your identity on this forum is a great feature.

I would however like some mechanism to discourage bad anonymous content tho. Maybe moderators with special powers to temporarily ban accounts?

 
Ventimacchiato:

Echo this point. The anonymous function allows people to share sensitive/personal info without being traced their identity (especially when their office is small and easily spotted).

This makes absolutely no sense. I assume your birth certificate doesn't say "Ventimacchiato" on it. You're already anonymous.

If you are posting information such that it allows you to be identified in real life, then it doesn't matter whether you're doing so as your usual handle or as an anonymous poster - people still know who you are! It only matters insofar as you can then trace that opinion to other things you've posted.

So here's a solution. Don't post anything you wouldn't be embarrassed to say in real life! If you don't want to be outed for saying stupid shit, don't say it.

 

I see the value in the feature and totally agree you could usually get an idea from post history who the user was/where they worked. While the anon feature has helped, most people are still pretty cagey about specifics. that might just be my experience.

Either way, I don't want the feature to go away, just improved.

Some kind of anonymous toggle, like the certified users toggle, could be an improvement.

 

Some suggestions:

  • Only allow the anonymous feature for new accounts after say a month (or after a certain amount of posts / bananas recieved)

  • If an anon comment gets a certain amount of ms then they lose the ability to post as an anon for eg 2 weeks.

 

I got your point but it's hard to completely get rid of this feature. Why? Because then you can track the user, get a lot of data about him based on his threads/comments and then it's almost clear who is it. Your co-workers/supervisors would have a bit too much knowledge about you than you would like them to have ;)

Therefore, I would totally opt for that option BUT only if it would be possible to switch off the visibility of your other topics/comments on the WSO by clicking on your username.

 

Perhaps to prevent users from being traced down in anon mode, just show that the user is in a particular range of seniority/banana points? Or just show the SB:MS ratio but also do it in a tiered way instead of exact number?

 

Awesome. Some great thoughts in here to help us improve the anonymous posting feature. I think with any major change like this there are bound to be bumps + bruises along the way. So let's see if we can try to create something that the devs can implement without a massive overhaul.

**A few clairfying points: **

  1. even if the public cant see who they are, we as admins still can. So if you flag an anoymous post and throw MS at it, we will see it and will send warnings and moderate as usual (we've also blocked more members in the last few weeks as site activity has surged 300% due to Covid)

  2. new users that get flagged are already auto blocked with all content wiped...it's how we keep the forums relatively clean of spam

  3. we frequently use a feature called No Bump on threads that get a lot of flags as low quality and/or political that end up in shitstorms so that new comments dont keep bumping it to the top. This way, the members that don't want to be bombarded with that stuff can avoid it but the members that like to argue can have at it

Ideas for Modifying Anon Feature

  • Option 1: The idea of only allowing Certified Users to be anon would solve some of this but then interns or prospectives with good information (does happen) may not be as forthcoming, so I'm not a big fan of that option...plus, sometimes certified users themselves are part of the problem.

  • Option 2: I think the idea of not allowing this feature for certain members that have a bad ratio is probably the best. So if someone joins and gets flagged/shit on right away, they are likely autoblocked and wiped from the community anyways.

  • What we want to stop is the most immature posters (certified or not) to hide behind the anonymity to create rude/controversial content...so something like anything worse than a 0.75 SB:MS ratio you lose anon posting privileges may help slow some of this down, but I think what would more likely happen is that the poster may just create a 2nd account and start over...or new users that register to give us some great juicy info that can't post anonymously are hesitant to do so...

Maybe we could start with a ratio thing shutting off anon privileges and see how that evolves?

More thoughts? Patrick

 

I think the idea of only allowing established (however you want to define it) users to comment anonymously has less downside risk. For all intents & purposes, new intern / prospective, etc. accounts are already essentially 'anonymous,' especially given they usually post in WSO-speak generalities ("think X/Y/Z") anyways. The feature should exist more to protect people with lots of posts / who've revealed quite a bit about themselves when they want to share a controversial opinion. If a prospect / intern with good info falls under that category, he'd probably meet the 'established user' criteria anyways. If certified users, etc. are using it to troll, they need to be booted, but that's probably a smaller pool (and easier to look at on a case-by-case) than the current crop of rabble-rousers.

Furthermore, forcing new accounts, etc. to post under one name would (/should) make it pretty clear that the massive ****-slinging threads (like the RBC ones), threads with bad advice / information, etc. are coming from a few bad faith actors, not some sort of street consensus of "analyst #s." Setting a SB:MS ratio may be warped in some cases as in some threads, saying (something along the lines of) 'RBC sucks' or 'RBC rocks' may get you a +10, while in others you may be at-10. Depends on what agenda trolls are active therein.

 

Hi Patrick,

I really like the intent of the feature and don't want to see it go away. My post above is a bit of rant, but the sentiment is I think anonymnous comments take away from the site's most valuable aspect: the advice/thoughtful input.

  • most users first come to WSO for advice and stay for the other content (you'd know better than I would, but that's why I'm here).

  • anonymous comments tend to hurt the advice threads the worst as the advice is largely unverifiable, especially the ones with only a few comments. And, stupid anonymous comments can derail a lot of threads regardless of topic.

As such, not a hugefan of option 1. Although Deal team 6 makes great points, I think the anonymous feature is at its best when some of the jucier stuff is being floated (bonuses/layoffs) and when new users are either asking where they stand in recruiting/what career moves they should make.

Option 2 probably limits nonsense with less headache for your team.

What kind of leg work would be needed to give an OP the power to choose if anonymous comments are allowed (a toggle) in a thread? I think this would be the best option as it OP could curate as needed and give the mod team an easy signal for what threads will likely turn into a shit storm.

Another thought is having the ability to hover over an anonymous user's name and certain stats would appear (SB:MS, Rank). This in tandem with option 2 or the toggle would protect users with pedigree and allow an OP to verify quality comments.

 

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